


No Future But Itself

by comtessedebussy



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Cock Rings, Established Relationship, Impact Play, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Paddling, Painplay, Problematic BDSM, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Self-Worth Issues, Whipping, self punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7237039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comtessedebussy/pseuds/comtessedebussy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John doesn't take to losing numbers well. Harold has suspected this would be the case, and when John's thoughtlessly risky self punishment results in serious injury, Harold decides to take matters into his own hands. If John can't be talked out of his self-flagellating, then the least Harold can do is ensure that John remains relatively safe and sound at the end of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Future But Itself

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this fic contains some very hardcore painplay. John is absolutely not in a state of mind to safeword, and does not at all have a healthy understanding of what his limits are - in fact, his behavior in tihs fic could be seen as a form of self-harm that also implicates Harold; as such, what he and Harold engage in in this fic is consensual, but it is problematic and could hardly be called safe and sane. Please keep this in mind if you proceed. 
> 
> The title is taken from Emily Dickinson's "Pain has an element of blank": 
> 
> Pain has an element of blank;  
> It cannot recollect  
> When it began, or if there was  
> A time when it was not.  
> It has no future but itself,  
> Its infinite realms contain  
> Its past, enlightened to perceive  
> New periods of pain.
> 
> Infinite thanks to Annie/idinink for beta-ing this fic, to findundergrounddragoutofwater for helping me work out some of the logistics of this story, and to my lovely followers and fellow POI fans (especially neverwhere and nightwolfslair) for providing encouragement and/or kicks in the ass at I took forever to write this fic.

It was inevitable that they would lose a number sooner or later. Given the nature of the job, as well as their limited source of information, the question was not if, but when. Harold is still surprised when it does; John is not only supremely competent, but extremely dedicated, and his ability to appear in the nick of time like an avenging angel had lulled Harold into a false sense of security.

But, eventually, unavoidably, there’s too little information, too many enemies standing against one man, and the whistleblowing secretary they’re protecting falls at the hands of superior firepower.

Harold is under no illusions about how well John’s going to take this. Grimly, he hacks into security cameras, watching his movements. He feels little guilt – he and John have had a tacit surveillance agreement since day one, which Harold didn’t actually dislike even if he never encouraged it. And, given Harold’s knowledge of the “more efficient methods” John was not so much contemplating as planning when Harold first found him, he thinks he’s rather justified in taking precautions.

But, all John does that evening is find a liquor store and buy a bottle of whiskey. Remembering about the fight on the subway that was ostensibly over a bottle of whiskey – John’s less efficient method - Harold hacks into the cameras in John’s phone and laptop, but all John does is drink most of the bottle of whiskey and fall asleep on the couch. Harold decides that monitoring the issue is the best course.

The next couple of losses – many weeks later – John avoids the liquor store entirely and instead heads to Harlem and Brighton Beach, patrolling dark streets and back alleys, kneecapping muggers and kidnappers and walking women home.

“I really wish you wouldn’t put yourself in more danger than the job requires, Mr. Reese,” Harold tells him the next morning.

“You hired me to save people. Just because the Machine didn’t give us their number doesn’t mean they didn’t need to be saved,” John retorts, and Harold doesn’t really have an argument for that.  John’s managed to come away with nothing more than a minor bruise and Harold has to admit that back alley muggers likely pose very little actual threat to a man with John Reese’s competence. Harold doesn’t like it, but as far as working through his frustration goes, he has to admit this is likely one of the safer options John could have chosen.

Then they lose a couple- young, both of them. The young man’s just been honorably discharged from the military, and John takes a particular interest in him. His girlfriend had waited for him during his deployment, and Harold knows all too well that the fact that she’s blonde is probably just another cruel reminder for John.

That night, John finds a dive bar and picks a fight over the logo on a baseball cap. Miraculously, he ends up with nothing more than cuts and bruises, and Harold watches as he stumbles drunkenly home and collapses on the couch. The next day, those cuts and bruises look particularly ugly from not being iced and tended to, and Harold winces when he sees John.

That same evening, Harold sits quietly and thinks long and hard. His suspicions that John would not take the loss of a number well had been more than confirmed. It’s inevitable that they lose another number, but that doesn’t mean that he has to lose John too, Harold thinks. A contingency is in order.

He considers carefully, analyzing the various factors. The fact that John blamed himself for their failures was patently obvious. As for his way of coping, Harold was expert at spotting patterns, and the pattern he seemed to be seeing here was an increasing tendency towards self-harm. So far, John had come away relatively unscathed, but Harold had no reason to think John’s self-flagellation would not escalate in degree.

If John was going to punish himself to the point of injury and potentially death, then it was on Harold to intervene. Harold, after all, was the one who had given John a job in which constant failure was not only a possibility, but a likelihood.

That evening, he begins to prepare what he considers a contingency, one that he would inevitably have to use. He develops the outlines of a plan and begins researching meticulously. He reads everything he can find about the psychology of BDSM. He watches online instructional videos. He goes to a kink store and buys dozens of feet of sturdy rope, several pairs of handcuffs, multiple whips, canes, paddles, and riding crops, wax, candles, and a number of other implements, as well as how-to books on how to tie knots, how to cause pain without injury. He practices the correct way to swing a whip, to strike blows without causing organ damage. He practices his aim. He even (though he will never, ever admit this) ventures into the realm of internet porn to make everything he’s learned less abstract, to see how real people actually react to all of these things. 

A few months later, John goes to a sketchy watering hole and picks a fight with an entire biker gang. He ends up with several broken ribs, a concussion, and more cuts and bruises than Harold can count. Harold continues to practice. He has a ceiling hook installed in one of his safe houses, complete with chains and handcuffs. He considers going to an actual BDSM club to observe, but curtails that thought when he realizes the wrong idea John would get from tailing him there.

The next time a number is killed - Harold refuses to call it “failing,” or to say that John “failed.” If anything, it was Harold who made the mistake by not finding the right information on time - Harold tells John to get out of there before the cops come. John’s taken care of the perpetrators, tied them up nice and pretty for the police, though that doesn’t change the fact that there’s a dead journalist’s body there as well. 

“I’m sorry, Finch, I messed up,” John says, and Harold knows that he’s about to ask if Finch needs anything else, if they have another number of if he can go for the night.  Harold has a pretty good idea of exactly what John’s going to go do, so he beats him to the punch and says, “Mr. Reese, if you wouldn’t mind coming by my apartment in the Village.” 

“Why? Has something else come up?” John asks. Harold can hear the worry in his voice over the line.

“You could say that,” Harold responds. He feels a little bad lying, but convinces himself that he’s not necessarily  _lying._  Something has indeed come up, in a manner of speaking.

He spends the time waiting for John preparing, going over all the possible paths their conversation might take, planning a scenario in his head, planning for all of its contingencies. 

He doesn’t want to hurt John, he really doesn’t. John has known too much pain and suffering for Harold to want to inflict any. Their first few times together, Harold had showered him with kisses and told him how marvelous he was, but John had flushed, and turned away, and looked so uncomfortable that Harold had realized that wasn’t the way. They settled instead into a pattern of light domination - Harold telling John what to do, to kneel, to stand, to touch himself, not to touch himself, and John had always obeyed, willingly,  eyes fluttering shut in pleasure. But Harold had never actually  _hurt_ him. He had sensed that what John wanted was orders, control, a firm guiding hand, and that’s what he’d given him. But now, it seemed, he couldn’t help inflicting pain. 

John doesn’t take long. He arrives unscathed - a miracle – but looking tired and burdened, as if he’d carried a crushing weight on his shoulders up the three flights of stairs to Harold’s apartment. And Harold knows that whatever he does to John tonight, whatever pain he inflicts on him, will still be infinitely better than anything John would do to himself. He doesn’t relish what he’s going to do - he’s not going to take pleasure in it, certainly - but John had given himself over to Harold, body and soul, a long time ago. And if John placed no value on either of those things, then Harold would. He would keep John safe from himself.

John lets himself in to find Harold waiting calmly on the couch facing the door.  His eyes scan the apartment for threats and, ascertaining that there are none, marches over to Harold.

 “What is it?” he demands, his voice full of concern, his face that of a man on a mission. “Is it another number? Your cover? Are you in danger?

 “No, nothing like that,” Harold assures him.

“Then what?”

“I know how difficult you find the loss of a number, John,” Harold begins. He’s written this dialogue in his head, repeated it again and again, and yet somehow reciting it for the umpteenth time doesn’t make it actually easier to say. “And I know what you do in the aftermath of that loss. I asked you here because I hoped I might be able to prevail upon you not to follow through with whatever your intentions were tonight.”

John folds his hands across his chest and regards Harold coolly.

“How I deal with it off the job is my business,” he says. “It’s not your problem.”

“But it is.” Harold rises and makes his way over to John. “You were once only an employee, John. Now you are my partner, and so much more than that. I care about you, and I most certainly care if you go around trying to get yourself killed.”

John scoffs, and for the first time, he sounds angry. “I can take care of myself, Finch. Or to you think I’m incompetent enough to get offed in a barfight?”

Harold sighs. On evenings like this, John rarely sees reason. Harold had been ready to lay reason out carefully, methodically, before John, but he may as well have been trying to explain logic and protocols to Bear.

“This has nothing to do with your competence, John,” he says wearily. “When you are outnumbered ten to one and intent on getting yourself hurt, it is hardly a matter of skill. You might realize that I already send you out into danger so often that I can hardly permit you to risk your life needlessly.”

 “I don’t need your _permission,_ Harold.” John retorts angrily. Harold stifles his own anger. It’s not _him_ that John is angry at; Harold merely offers a convenient target in John’s current state.

“You don’t, of course, but – perhaps you might consider, John, how I feel every time I send you out into the field, and you look back at me and smile, and I wonder if that will be the last time I ever see you. You mean a great deal to me, John, and if anything happened to you – if I lost you for no good reason, meaninglessly, by sheer bad luck, the way I lost – well, I don’t think I could stand it.”

“Yeah, well,” John says bitterly. “I can’t stand not doing what I do. You wouldn’t understand.”

“You are correct. I don’t,” Harold admits. “I know that you feel you deserve to be punished, that you feel a compulsion to do it yourself, even, but I will not say I understand why. I also know that I cannot simply talk you out of it. I merely hoped that you might allow me to – help.”

“And how are you going to do that, Finch?”

Finch gestures towards the bedroom. “Let me show you.”  

He follows John into the bedroom and watches as John takes in the whips, crops, paddles, belts, and canes that he’d laid out in neat rows on the bed, the chains hanging from the ceiling. He rounds on Harold.

“Harold, what the hell is this?” he demands.

“I would think, in particular given your former employment, that you would know the use of most of these implements.”

“I know what they _are,_ ” John says. “What are you doing with them?”

“As I have said, I’m not going to attempt to talk you out of your endeavor to punish yourself, or of your belief that you deserve it. But, if you feel you must be punished, I can at least ensure that you do so safely, with no danger to your life.”

“You want to punish me?” John’s voice wavers, sounds uncertain. Is that relief that Harold hears somewhere there?

“I don’t want to; in fact, there are few things I desire less. But if it must happen, I would prefer that it were I rather than another, and that I could guarantee that it did not end in permanent injury or death.”

John glances at the bed again; his expression is purely tactical, an appraisal. He saunters over, picking up a cane and swinging it to test its give. “Do you even know how to use these?”

“Yes,” Harold says, with slightly more certainty than he feels. He’s researched and practiced, but he’s never actually struck another human body.

John side-eyes him with a touch of skepticism.

“I know what you want, John,” Harold says. “You don’t just want to be punished. You want to be _broken._ I can give that to you.”

“All right, then,” John says, sounding almost amused. “Do your worst.” It’s a challenge, but one that hides – something else.

Harold straightens up. Silently puts on the mask that he’s prepared, feels the power of that façade flow through him.  

“If you would be so kind as to undress and put yourself in those chains over there,” Harold instructs, “I would be much obliged.”

John snorts. “And if I don’t? How are you going to make me?” He’s intent on not making this easy, and Harold can’t quite tell if he’s skeptical of Harold’s abilities or simply provoking him into a harsher punishment.

“You know as well as I do,” Harold says patiently, “that I cannot _make_ you. We also both know that you can free yourself from virtually any restraint or predicament. So the only reason you would refuse…” Harold pauses for half a beat, “is because, for whatever reason, you are afraid of what I might do.”

His words do the trick. Without a second thought, John immediately begins unbuttoning his shirt, with only the slightest amount of nonchalant flair to the movements to mask the immediacy of his obedience. Under Harold’s watchful eye, he folds his clothes, hangs the suit on the back of the chair, and stalks over to the middle of the bedroom.

Harold watches and admires John’s lithe, muscled body. He knows that in a few moments, that body will be his canvas, to hurt, to paint with blood and bruises, but for this moment, he can admire the ease with which John saunters freely over, the insouciance with which he reaches up towards the chains (too high for Harold) and easily fastens each manacle around his wrist. Harold had adjusted their height so that John can stand freely, though not entirely comfortably, on the soles of his feet, and he does that now, his body stretched between floor and ceiling in a way that radiates ease and calm. Harold watches as he tests the give of the chains, moves experimentally, before stilling and looking over at Harold questioningly.

He takes that as his cue to walk over and face John. He cradles his face in one of his hands and leans forward to kiss him softly. John exhales in surprise, but allows the kiss without flinching away.

“I’m going to hurt you, John,” he says honestly. “Badly. If, however, you want me to stop at any time, say ‘Red’ or ‘Stop’ and I will do so, immediately, no matter what.”

 “And if I don’t want you to stop?” John asks.

“Green.”

John chuckles. “What’s yellow?”

“Slower. Gentler,” Harold explains. “I doubt you’ll be using it,” he adds.

“You’re not wrong.”

Finch smiles – barely a smile, his mouth simply quirking up on one side. He gives John’s face another soft caress, another sweet kiss, before pulling away.

“If you feel the need to scream, you may do so. The walls are soundproofed, and I own the entire building.”

“I’m not going to scream,” John says, his tone the closest John’s restrained voice ever came to being adamant.  

“We’ll see. We are going to be here for a very long time, after all, Mr. Reese.”

Harold didn’t know how long, exactly, but he had a feeling it would be a very long time. What most other people considered extreme agony was, for John Reese, par for the course. Based on his own familiarity with John’s past experiences, he calculated that it would likely take at least an hour to get John to the point where he would even interpret what he felt as _pain_ rather than a minor irritation to ignore.

It would be a very long night for him too. He had made sure to take his pain medication shortly before. His arm and side and shoulder would likely be in agony before the end of the night, given the amount of strength and effort it would take to give John what he needed. Harold wasn’t even sure _he_ had the stamina to give John the level of pain he required, the level of pain that would prevent him from going out to seek out more on his own. But, Harold thought, John Reese was not the only stubborn one of the two of them.

He began with a crop. Made of fine leather, the best that Harold could by. He hit John with it gently – buttocks, back of the legs – so lightly, in fact, that at the first few hits John barely even seem to realize he was being hit.

“ _Harold,_ ” he said in frustration. “If you’re going to do _that,_ what’s the point of this?”

Harold smiled, though he knew John couldn’t see him.

“What do you want, John?” he asked.

“I want you to hit me.”

“I’m doing just that,” Finch pointed out.

“Harder.”

“Ah.” He drew out the syllable. “Ask for it, then. For exactly what you want.”

“Hit me harder. Please.”

Harold acquiesced, increasing by the slightest amount the force of his blows. They still couldn’t be called pain, but after a few minutes, John’s back, ass, and thighs were a healthy red color, indicating (from everything Harold had researched) that he was ready to move to something more intense.

He picked up the paddle he had purchased and ran his hand over the smooth, polished wood. It was heavy in his hand, large and thick. John was watching him as he chose it, his face expressionless. It was the face, Harold imagined, that John put on when he was in similar situations with enemies – a blank look to hide calculating observation.

He needed two hands to wield the paddle properly. With its weight, he had needed to practice extensively before he could swing it with confidence and accuracy.

It landed on John’s skin with a dull thud, but elicited from him nothing more than a hitch in his breath. He hit again and again, each strike meticulous, until the redness on John’s buttocks blossomed into bruises, blue and purple. He laid bruises over bruises, bringing the paddle down onto the already angry, blue-red skin. He was glad John couldn’t see his face as he did it – he himself could barely keep from flinching as he watched the paddle fall onto the already raw skin. Pain atop pain, building on itself, manifest in front of him in the blooming colors on John’s skin, the broken capillaries below it. He didn’t _want_ to hit that already bruised body, did not want to layer injury atop injury, it seemed too much for a human body to be hurt and to take _more._

But John said nothing, didn’t cry out or moan. He merely gripped the chains holding him tighter, breathing shallowly, his body braced for the impact. When Harold had been preparing for this by watching whatever videos he could find on the internet, he had encountered numerous ones in which the man being hit shied away from the blows, turned and twisted away as if he didn’t want to be hit though he had excitedly agreed to it in the introduction to each video. John did no such thing. He remained still after each blow, only the momentum and the impact of it moving him slightly before he resumed his position. In fact, John remained so still and silent that it was practically eerie – something not quite human. The pain itself, the punishment, was not something Harold was entirely unfamiliar with, but John’s unflinching, stubborn ability to take it without a sound, without a movement, sent cold horror through his veins. It was almost as if that little piece of humanity, the one that allowed people to cry out in horror, or pain, or suffering, had been surgically removed from John over the years.

Harold wondered if that unnatural stillness in the face of pain was a refusal to show weakness, or John’s way of offering his body up for more pain, asking for it through sheer force of will as his body screamed against it. A mix of both, probably.

Once John’s buttocks were a canvas of angry blue and red, every inch, he laid down the paddle. John’s breathing was still shallow, but he remained silent. Harold picked up a switch – birch – and flicked it several times through the air, eliciting a vicious hiss. He had it on good authority that switches hurt “like a motherfucker,” as one eloquent kinkster on the internet had put it, and Harold was inclined to take his word. The very hiss of the switch flying through the air was practically painful to listen to. He couldn’t imagine how it would feel on tender, bruised skin.

John was watching him attentively. Calculating. Running through his experiences, potentially, to settle on the level of pain the switch would inflict, calculating the level of endurance it would require and placing his mind neatly into where it needed to be to endure it.

He began with John’s back and legs. The switch wasn’t heavy, and it was easy to rain down blows from thigh to calf, each blow hissing like a venomous snake. They made a strangely mathematical pattern of parallel, then crisscrossing lines. With John facing away from him, he paused every few minutes, listening to the sound of John’s breathing in between the sound of the switch, gauging where he was. His breathing was short, but still he remained unnaturally silent. When they had trained him to withstand “enhanced interrogation techniques,” Harold wonder, did they teach him to never cry out if he could help it?

John’s back was more tender from previous blows, and the stinging laid upon its sore skin elicited from him the slightest of groans, barely perceptible, short, quick sounds that dissipated from the air almost immediately. There, on a canvas already scarred from past experiences John rarely mentioned, Harold laid down a similarly crisscrossing pattern.  

He paused. They both knew what was coming. The back and legs a healthy red, there was only one area left to hit – the bruised, tender skin of John’s buttocks that he had worked at for so long. When Harold hit that, John did make a sound, finally. He groaned, low and guttural, and _growled_ at each blow, while his quick shallow breaths mingled the ceaseless hissing of the switch. Once Harold fell into a pattern, it was almost comfortable, a mechanical motion of raining down blow after blow.

It was only a matter of time before Harold drew blood; bruised skin, hit again and again, bled easily.

He paused. John’s breathing was still shallow and pained, his whole body tense, held still through sheer force of will. Harold walked around to face him. John’s eyes were glassy, unseeing, lost in the distance.

Harold touched his face gently and John started in surprise at a touch that wasn’t pain. It broke Harold’s heart, that look of utter bewilderment when his hand didn’t deliver a blow.

“John,” he said softly. John met his eyes briefly, and his face flitted through a range of expressions – surprise, a careful attempt at stoicism, and what Harold recognized after a few seconds as shame.

“You’re doing so beautifully, John,” he said.

John’s mouth fell open in surprise. Whatever stoicism they had programmed into him for situations like this, it clearly did not extend to words of praise. John reacted to Harold’s gentleness in a way he had not reacted to the pain. It broke him.  

Harold ran gentle hands over John’s muscles, willing them to relax where they’d been gripping the chains tightly. He traced the lines of John’s face lovingly.

“How much more do you need?” Harold asked.

He expected John’s bewilderment in response to that phrase, could easily predict John’s response of “I can take however much you’re going to give me.”

“I didn’t ask you how much you can take, John. Too much, I know that well. I asked how much more you need before you feel that you’ve atoned for whatever mistakes you think you’ve made today.”

John considered him carefully. Harold waited in patient silence as John processed the distinction and came to a conclusion.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Then I hope you will trust me to be the judge of when enough is enough,” Harold said.

John looked at him with such utter trust and devotion in that moment that Harold felt like he was the one being broken. “Yes,” he breathed, as if he were handing his entire being over to Harold. Which, in a way, he was.

John’s breathing had evened out and calmed by now. Still, Harold took a few minutes to carefully wipe the blood from John’s back and run the gentlest of soothing hands over the skin before proceeding. They were close now, Harold could feel it – if not to John’s limits, then at least to his own, and to how much he was willing to do. Close to how much he thought John needed. But not quite there yet.

John watched warily as Harold lifted the spiked paddle and weighed it. He could guess, no doubt, how Harold planned to use it, could anticipate the pain of each metallic spike sinking, again, and again, into his already tender and bleeding skin. But he said nothing, merely steeling himself and fixing his eyes straight ahead. If Harold had expected a word, so much as an expression, of reluctance, he didn’t get it.

He brushed his fingers tenderly over John’s skin – less an encouragement than a promise, that he wouldn’t stop, that he wouldn’t give in. He would be strong like John, as much as it pained him to watch each bruise and welt blossom into redness. He started by drawing the paddle over John’s skin, listening as John sucked in pained breaths of air through clenched teeth.

The first few hits with the spiked paddle elicited hisses from John. But as Harold hit him, again and again, tirelessly, until almost every inch of the reddened skin has started bleeding, they turned into low, guttural grunts. The chains clanged against each other as John clutched them for support, tight enough to leave the reddened patterns of the chain on his palms. His breathing was heavy and labored, the breaths coming in quick pants.

After ten agonizing minutes of this, of listening as the groans turned into low growls of pain, John cried out, once. It was a short cry, quickly suppressed, and Harold paused.

John didn’t react to the cessation of movement. He stood – hung – still, hands still clutching the chains as if for dear life, sucking in pained breaths.

Harold walked around to face John. John’s eyes were focused on something beyond the room, on whatever place or thing it was that gave John strength to suffer through moments like this.

“Would you like me to stop, John?” he asked, keeping his voice carefully even and clinical.

“No.” John croaked the word, his throat hoarse from groans and growls. The response was immediate, but Harold could tell it cost him. He answered as if in a daze, because he _knew_ that that was what he must answer, knew that there _could_ be no other answer.

“What do you want, John?”

John’s face remained expressionless. “Green,” he said, adamantly, stubbornly, flinging the word out as if he was afraid of his own weakness and needed to say it before some other part of himself, some weaker part, stopped him.

“As you wish.”

He caressed John’s face again, a quick brush of the fingers. Picking up a cloth, he wiped the blood from John’s back, and checked to make sure the handcuffs hadn’t caused any dangerous damage. John’s wrists were bruised, and in some places bloody, but his fingers were responsive, and he could see nothing that should cause him to worry about blood flow.

Moving to face John again, he wiped the sweat from his brow and brought water to his lips. “Drink,” he said. John glared at him, but Harold glared back.

“I am not one of your captors, John,” he said. “I will give you what you need, but on my terms.”

It was the act of taking control that made John acquiesce, gulping the water down and spilling some. Harold wiped the remaining droplets from his face, but left his skin glistening in the candlelight.

He picked up the riding crop, the first one he’d used.

“I believe the last time I used this, you begged me to hit you harder.” He tapped his palm with the crop, each blow eliciting a healthy smack. “Tell me, John, if I were to use this again, would you like me to hit you harder?”

The struggle painted on John’s face, normally so restrained, so stoic even through all he’d experienced at Harold’s hands today, was patently visible. Nothing in him would allow him to ask Harold to stop, or even to hold back. But to not ask Harold to hit him harder, that was a thornier question. It wasn’t surrender, not quite an admission that he couldn’t take what Harold was giving him, and yet, in its own way, it was a weakness, a “no more” that was too close to begging. He knew John was reliving the blows Harold had inflicted, imagining the fiery agony of even the slightest of hits against his already tender skin, cringing internally at the thought, even while a stubbornness in the back of his mind reminded him that there was no other possibility but to accept it.

John squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to meet Harold’s gaze. Harold could read the struggle within him between what he wanted and what he thought he deserved – no, it wasn’t that simple. What he wanted was to atone, to have the strength to survive this, and what he thought he deserved was likely much more than Harold was ever willing to inflict on him.

It all came down to this: John would never ask for it to stop, would not ask for _less_ than what Harold was giving him. But would he ask for _more?_

“What do you _want,_ John?” He asked.

Such a simple question, and yet not. In John Reese’s mind, it was impossible to separate wanting from deserving, and he was not the type of man to ever allow himself something if he did not believe he deserved it.

“I’m not asking you about what you need or what you deserve, but what you want, John. Do you _want_ me to hit harder?”

Several moments of silence passed, and Harold almost thought John wouldn’t answer, until finally, quietly, he croaked “no.” His already husky voice was even hoarser than usual, and the word fell from his lips as a quiet, broken admission.

Harold beamed.

“Good,” he said, hoping to convey all the praise he felt with that one word. “You’ve been so good, John, in every way.”

John stared at Harold in surprise at the unexpected praise.

“I think, for that, you deserve a reward, don’t you?” Harold asked.

John stared back in confusion. “Harold – “

But whatever protest started out on John’s lips, Harold ignored it. He reached up to free John’s hands – standing on tiptoes to reach, which brought him flush against John’s firm presence. Even like this, tied up and hurt, his body was firmly reassuring. Like a port in a storm, and Harold felt somehow strengthened by it while floundering in the mess of what he was doing to a man he loved.

When the cuffs came off, John stumbled, caught off balance, and Harold caught him. John’s weight was heavy, and for second he thought they would both fall, before John steadied himself, holding himself upright through the sheer force of his impossible will.

He looked at Harold questioningly.

“Kneel,” Harold told him. “Hands and knees.”

John did, obediently lowering his lanky limbs to the hardwood floor. Harold had considered putting down a rug, but had decided against it. It would not be comfortable for John, but he didn’t intend to keep him here long. And the way John’s limbs were shaking, he had a feeling that it was only a matter of time before his muscles gave out, however much he fought it.

“Good.” Harold lowered himself to the floor behind John with difficulty, placing a cushion down for himself. As expected, his leg and his arm and his neck ached from the exertion, but, he reminded himself, it was nothing next to what John was feeling.

Nothing Harold had done so far had aroused John in the least. He hadn’t expected it to, but now he changed tacks, touching John sensually. John gasped in surprise at the gentle hands on his back, the caresses of his sides, the hand on his flaccid cock. Harold could almost sense that he was about to protest the gentle touches that seemed to have no place here.

“Can you stay still for me?” Harold asked.

The protests remained unspoken as the situation rearranged itself in John’s head, fell into place as something John was doing _for Harold._ If Harold wanted his body for himself, to use it as he pleased, it was its own form of reward that was at once punishment, another way of offering himself. John stilled completely, except for the occasional tremor running through his exhausted limbs as he kept himself in the position Harold had ordered him into.

“Perfect,” Harold said, and watched another tremor run through John’s body at the word. As if that word had been a blow. No, that wasn’t quite it - John had barely reacted as the blows fell, but his whole body trembled at the word of praise.

He took his time opening John up. This was one way in which he was not willing to hurt him. Instead, he added finger after finger slowly, curling them just the slightest amount to press against the sweet spots of John’s body that he knew so well. John gasped, in surprise first, then pleasure.

“So, so good for me,” Harold said, stroking a hand lovingly down John’s side. “So perfectly still, just for me. I know you won’t come until I say so,” he added, and John perked up at the last phrase, as if suddenly given a goal he understood. As if he now knew what to do with himself, because what Harold had given him was in the realm of pain as much as of pleasure.

He closed his eyes and gripped John’s sides – more instinct than an admonition for him to remain still – as he entered John from behind. Everything else fell away but this feeling of John’s body accepting him, taking him in. Of the feeling of John offering himself up, willingly. It was a gift: John never cared much for his well-being, threw it away at the slightest provocation, but to offer himself up, the entirety of his body and his being to Harold, rather than thinking of it as a by-product of whatever mission he was on – that was a gift Harold still relished. John would willingly throw himself in front of a bullet at Harold’s orders and think nothing of it,  but it was something entirely different, Harold thought, for John to _give_ himself like this, to stay completely still in utter surrender with no greater mission at hand.

If he closed his eyes, he could almost forget everything he had done, could take John’s body lovingly, joining them. He could relish John’s gasps and moans as he moved slowly, provocatively slowly, eliciting those moans and groans of desire. But no begging – even in this, John would not beg. Not yet. It cost him to stay still, to not push himself back, to ask for _more,_ and Harold could read the effort of it in the line of John’s shoulders, the tilt of his head. He could feel it in the tightness of his muscles when he ran his hands over John’s torso.

“Stay still,” he ordered in encouragement, and John obeyed, beautifully, perfectly, completely.

He reached forward to touch John’s cock. It had hardened in arousal now, the strength of holding himself back from desire only serving to build it up. The tip leaked precome, begging eloquently to be touched in a way John himself did not as Harold kept himself in check with slow, leisurely, drawn-out movements.

When Harold finally came, spilling himself inside John, the other man moaned deeply. “You’re _mine,_ ” Harold reiterated. He wasn’t sure why he said it, it wasn’t calculated, but he felt the need to claim John’s body given how completely John had offered it and everything else to him today. That, too, sent a shiver through John’s otherwise still body.

When Harold pulled out, John stayed still. Only his eyes moved, looking to Harold for his next instruction.

“On the bed,” he commanded. “On your back,” he added.

He had fitted the bed with new silk sheets, the softest he could find. Their coolness would feel pleasant against burning skin upon first touch, but then the contact would start to make itself felt, then to burn.

John lay himself out obediently. Legs spread in offering, he took up almost the entire bed with his tall frame. Like this, with his back invisible, he looked like a sumptuous prize laid out for Harold: a firm torso, a hardened cock arching towards his stomach, pupils dilated, breaths short either from arousal or pain or both. Waiting to be taken, dominated. Without Harold even telling him to, he had lifted his hands above his head, gripping the bars of the headboard, obviating any need for restraints.

Harold climbed onto the bed carefully, positioning himself between John’s spread legs. John watched him with attentive eyes. Harold pulled out a cock ring and watched those eyes brighten in understanding.

“I’m sure you don’t need help following orders,” Harold said lightly, “but I thought you might appreciate it.”

He slipped the ring deftly on; John gasped lightly as he locked the ring around the base of his cock.

Harold himself wasn’t hard again yet – his refractory period wasn’t what it used to be when he was young, or even before the accident. Instead, he focused on John. He traced the scars- so familiar to him – over John’s body, his touches feather light, then trailed his hands lower, brushing the insides of John’s thighs, his hips, tantalizing suggestions of where his hands could go next.

Then he trailed his hands to John’s cock. He thumbed the tip, establishing a circular motion that made delightful, breathless sounds spill from John’s lips, then moved on to slow, leisurely strokes. There was no way John could come with the ring around the base of his cock, but the ring held back only his orgasm, not his need, and John’s hands clenched tightly around the headboard in the effort to weather his desire as he’d weathered the pain.

“Like this,” Harold encouraged him. “Stay still for me, John.”

It was a pleasure, sometimes, to watch John obey. It was like an invisible string connected John’s body to his orders. Whatever he might command, never did he doubt that John would immediately realize those orders, as if Harold’s words shaped John’s very being. The body below him remained still as Harold stroked it enticingly, and Harold did doubt that it would for as long as he asked it to. John’s entire being, he sometimes thought, was made of willpower. His pleasures, his needs, his wants, were all hidden, locked away and restrained, until sometimes Harold thought John was hollow inside, built up of will and obedience. He wanted to fill that void, to give John something other to carry around in himself than _need, must, should,_ but they had been together for so little, and the void in John’s heart had been building for so, so long.

With effort, he leaned forward (his back did not appreciate the angle) and licked the tip of John’s cock, circling the tip tantalizingly with his tongue. John cried out at that, throwing his head back, though his hips remained squarely on the bed. His body was taut as a string, one on the edge of breaking, fraying with effort.

Harold employed every trick he knew, every single one that John had ever used on him and then some. He stroked John quickly, then slowly. He trailed the silky fabric of his tie teasingly over his balls. He tightened his grip and loosened it, sped up before taking his hand away and watching John cry out in need. He tweaked his nipples, watching them harden before his eyes, before attaching clamps to each one. They were light, glittering things, more decoration than sensation, a way to draw John’s attention in multiple directions.

John’s eyes had fluttered closed, lost to the sensations, their give and take. They fluttered open when Harold took his hand away, the long lashes delicate and beautiful like butterfly wings. His eyes pleaded silently what his words would not say. _More._

Harold touched himself. Watching John, spread before him in all his beauty and splendor, gasping breathlessly in need, he did not require long to get hard again. Still, he meticulously made sure John was still prepared for him, working him open again, relishing the feeling of his own come that had marked John earlier. He added a generous amount of lube to his own cock before entering John again.

At that, John moaned outright – full, loud, unrestrained. The most unrestrained sound John had made all night, and Harold luxuriated in it.

He buried himself inside John, again and again, all thought of restraint lost, moans falling from his own lips, then being echoed by John. Everything felt in concert, a perfect duet of his own movements, in and out, and John’s body accepting him with pleasured, needy sighs.

“Harold, _please,”_ he whispered.

Harold stilled.

John froze, too, as if realizing that he’d allowed himself to beg for the first time that night. He turned away, looking like a skittish, frightened animal, awaiting punishment.

Harold placed a soothing hand on his hip. “It’s all right, John,” he said, in what he hoped was a comforting tone. “What do you want?”

But John stayed silent. Only his eyes – he’d turned them back to Harold - were desperate, pleading Harold not to push him any further, not to ask any more, because John couldn’t vouch for the response he’d give.

So Harold kept moving. It was getting harder and harder to hold _himself_ back, and he almost wished he could have the insurance of a cock ring to prevent himself from coming too early. He touched John, too, lightly, teasing caresses of his needy, swollen cock that were more frustration than satisfaction. 

“You feel so perfect, John.” Harold wasn’t one for dirty talk, but…. “I could go on like this for a long time, taking you again and again. You’re _mine,_ and you would let me.” Harold thrust harder, punctuating his words with movements as if to emphasize them.  

“Harold – “ John croaked.

“Is that what you want, John? For me to not stop, to use your body to satisfy myself for hours and hours while I keep you from what you so desperately want, endlessly?”

It was a gamble, and Harold knew it. His words could break John – or they could be the foundation he used to build his walls up again.

John turned his head away, staring desperately at the wall. Harold watched his face carefully, attentive to the slightest change of expression, the slightest clue as to which of two outcomes his words produced. Whichever one it was, Harold wasn’t sure that John would betray it with more than the slightest change in expression.

But instead John whispered, brokenly, so softly Harold only caught it because he was listening for it, one word.

“Stop.”

He didn’t meet Harold’s eyes, kept them turned away, his body tight and taut, as if ready to be refused and punished for his weakness. He looked as if he’d been shattered into pieces - as if that single word had cost him more than everything else that came before it.

Harold stilled.

He reached for the cock ring, removing it as quickly as he could while still doing so carefully.

“You’ve been so good, John,” he said. “You’ve been perfect. Tell me, what do you want?”

John turned his expression to Harold, utter helplessness in his eyes.

“Do you want to come?” Harold asked. The question was rhetorical, but Harold could still read its answer in John’s eyes.

“Just a little longer,” Harold reassured him as he started moving again. “You’ll know when.”

It didn’t take him long to bring himself to the edge and spill inside John for the second time. As he did it, he reached for the nipple clamps and pulled them off in a swift movement. John cried out – not from the pain of it, Harold was sure, but from the addition of yet another sensation to what was already a cacophony of them – and spilled over himself. The self-restraint that had held him still and stoic under the onslaught finally broke, and Harold watched as John shook and trembled beneath him as the waves of pleasure wracked his body.

When the orgasm had subsided, John met Harold’s eyes tentatively. There was an uncertainty still lingering there, behind the relief and the satisfaction. His hands still held the headboard, his body still in the position in which Harold had taken him, as if expecting Harold to give him something more, willing to accept whatever it was.

Harold leaned forward and kissed John, gently and deeply. His body screamed and protested, but he ignored it, losing himself in the sensual touch of John’s lips. He poured all his love and devotion into the kiss, and when he pulled away, the uncertainty in John’s eyes was gone.

“You were perfect, John,” Harold said again. “Now turn over.”

John let go of the headboard – an encouraging sign – and turned, slowly. The silk sheets were stained with blood where he’d laid on them – ruined, probably – but Harold couldn’t care less. He let John arrange himself face-down on the bed while he carried the warm water, cloths, disinfectants and lotions he’d prepared towards the bed.

John’s back was – well, a mess. Harold froze momentarily as he looked at John’s ravaged body. He’d inflicted this, and now, outside this moment, this scene they’d set up, the full weight of it fell upon his shoulders. The pain, the injury, the twisted _perversity_ of it all, of a world where he had raised a hand to rain blow after blow upon the man he loved to protect him from himself. What kind of world was this, Harold thought, if _this_ was what he had to do to John to keep him safe from himself? What kind of world twisted a man so much that the bloody, broken body before him was the _better_ option?

The blood had dried, the wounds had started closing, but John’s skin was still an angry red, bruises alternating with the cuts made by the whip or sharing John’s skin with them. He bathed John’s back in warm water, washing off the dried blood from each cut carefully. He continued with disinfectant, bandaging the worst of the cuts. John lay motionless; if Harold’s ministrations stung – and he had no doubt they did – he didn’t react. When Harold applied ice to the bruises, John started in surprise, but quickly sank back into the bed with Harold’s gentle hand on his shoulder. He left the ice on the worst of the bruises and rubbed lotion into his skin, massaging the tender muscles. He could feel John relaxing beneath his hands, allowing Harold to soothe the muscles he’d kept so taut throughout the evening.

John was silent, letting Harold minister to him. It was almost calming, to be able to take care of John like this. When John got hurt on missions, Harold usually took care of him – insofar as John would let him – but he rarely had the time to so carefully and meticulously shower attention on an injured John.

When Harold was done, he covered John with a blanket. He’d read, during his extensive research, that a submissive’s temperature often drops quickly after a scene. He’d chosen a soft cotton and silk blend. He rose to undress and John finally moved, turning his head.

“Harold,” he asked quietly. “You’re not staying?” He almost succeeded at keeping the desperation out of his voice.

“I’m here, John.” He willed his fingers to hurry as he undressed himself – wretched buttons and ties and why did he have to wear such complicated three piece suits? John watched him warily, as if afraid Harold would change his mind and disappear. Finally, down to boxers and a T-shirt, Harold climbed into bed and drew John closer to him. John allowed himself to be handled, turning on his side and burying his head in Harold’s chest.

“Thank you,” he whispered as Harold carded a hand through John’s hair.

And what did one say to that? _You’re welcome for giving you a beating_? _I’m sorry I didn’t hurt you as much as you wanted me to?_

“What for?” he asked instead, helplessly.

John turned his head to meet his eyes.

“For taking care of me,” he said.

Harold pulled him closer, guided John’s lips towards his own with a hand on the back of his head. The kiss was quick, and chaste, but it was what Harold needed.

“You said once that I saved your life,” Harold said, “and you entrusted me with that life and your wellbeing. And I will do anything that is necessary to honor that, to keep you safe and happy, and to treat your wellbeing as if you were my own. No, don’t protest,” he added, as John opened his mouth. “You do not value your own life, but I do. To me it is precious, and I will have you always know that, John Reese.”

John smile was bittersweet in response.

“That’s not actually my name,” he said. “Kara gave it to me.”

John rarely spoke of Kara, even after that night on the rooftop.

“Do you want to change it?” Harold enquired.

“No.” John looked up at Harold. “I like it when you say it. It makes it new. Like I’m a different person, even if I have the same name.”

“I believe they call that a christening,” Harold said. “Or a rebirth.”

Harold fell silent at the implications of the metaphor. If John Reese had been reborn after meeting him, then what did that make _him_? Harold made no pretensions to divinity, but John’s look of adoration as he said it – well, it was not unlike Root’s expression when she spoke of The Machine.

“Mmm,” John mumbled, his eyes fluttering closed. Within minutes, he was sleeping peacefully in Harold’s arms. Harold had meant to give him a sedative or painkiller, but as usual, he’d underestimated John Reese’s utter negligence of his own state of being.

So he did the only thing he could in the face of that knowledge: he held John close for when he would inevitably wake from a nightmare, caressing him gently, and thought about what he would do the next time they lost a number.

 


End file.
